


king undisputed, respected, saluted

by icygrace



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:50:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icygrace/pseuds/icygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If I should fall, you must be king. It cannot be George. It can never be George. You must not allow him to take the throne.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The White Queen et al. do not belong to me and dialogue quoted from particular episodes/books definitely does not belong to me.
> 
> The title comes from "Be Prepared" from The Lion King. While, interestingly, Scar seems pretty clearly lifted from Shakespeare's Richard III, I didn't choose the title to draw parallels between Scar and this Richard.
> 
> Feel free to follow me on tumblr, especially if you want to know more about my fics: fyeahicygrace

_July 1469_

 

“Still no word?” Edward asks.

 

There is word, and it is not good. Not good at all.

 

It falls to Anthony to deliver the bad news. “Warwick's got past our lookout. His army's coming to besiege us. Ride to the protection of London.”

 

“Go alone, you’ll ride faster,” John advises.

 

“We'll stay and hold him off,” he assures his brother.

 

“To arms! Quickly! Quickly, men!” calls John, striding off to rally their men.

 

Edward hesitates a moment. “First, I need something of you, Richard. You must promise me.”

 

“Anything,” he says breathlessly. The faster Edward asks and he agrees, the faster Edward will ride for safety.

 

“If I should fall, you must be king. It cannot be George. It can never be George. You must not allow him to take the throne.”

 

Even now, in times of war, Richard has never before heard such talk from his supremely confident eldest brother, talk of contingencies and his own mortality and it shocks him as nothing else ever has.

 

“Do you hear me?” Edward demands when he does not reply. “I _command_ you, Richard!”

 

Unmindful of the rain, Richard kneels in the mud, head bowed. Otherwise, even in the rain, Edward may see the tears in his eyes. “I am ever your faithful servant, Your Grace.”

 

Edward pulls him up and embraces him. “I always forget how young you really are, little brother. You’ve always been so serious,” he adds fondly.

 

Richard does not like to be reminded of his youth and even less to remind Edward of it, especially now. He is nearly seventeen and already a capable soldier and leader of men.

 

“Your Grace –” Anthony Rivers begins hesitantly. “You must –”

 

Edward turns his head. “Of course. I’m going.” But for a moment longer his attention is on Richard. “I’m sorry to ask such a thing of you, Dickon,” he says thickly, reverting to the childhood nickname Richard has outgrown. “But I cannot leave without your promise.”

 

“You have it, Ned,” he vows and prays no one hears the tremor in his voice to match the one in his hands.

 

Then Edward turns to his wife’s family. “Guard him as you would me. If –”

 

“Your Grace –” his father-in-law interrupts.

 

“I know we all hope and pray otherwise, but for my peace as I depart for London, lord father, I need you to swear it,” Edward insists. “You know that Elizabeth and my daughters – not to mention all of you – would never be safe from George or from Warwick. If I should fall, you must all stand together and fight for Richard as you would for me, be as faithful to him as to me.”

 

“I swear it – I swear it,” promise the Queen’s father and brother in succession, kneeling in the mud before Edward as Richard had.

 

“May God bless you and keep you, brother,” Richard says as Edward mounts his horse and kicks it into motion.

 

“And you, Richard!” calls Edward over his shoulder as he rides away.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, but it will lie easier when Richard can be sure his claim is undisputed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” is from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II.

_January 1470_

 

When George is finally captured, he is brought straight to the throne room at Westminster, filled to capacity with Yorkist nobles.

 

“George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence,” intones the herald.

 

“ _Former_ Duke of Clarence. By act of Parliament, he is named an attainted traitor,” Richard corrects from his seat on the throne for the benefit of the assembled court.

 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, but it will lie easier when Richard can be sure his claim is undisputed. No one must forget why it is he, not George, who has sat the throne since Edward’s death. It had been easy to compel the passage of a bill of attainder against George once Warwick’s army was routed and George had fled, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Because of the attainder, even if Isabel bears a boy, the child will have no right to the throne after his father.

 

“By betraying and conspiring to kill our right and honorable king, my brother Edward,” Richard continues. “He has committed high treason. And so he must die.”

 

“No!” interrupts a distraught voice. His formidable lady mother, who has always favored George. Even now, it seems. She all but runs to kneel before Richard.  “You cannot execute him, he’s your brother,” his mother begs.

 

“I can, and I will,” he says lowly, voice colder than ice. “George is no longer any brother of mine. _Edward_ was my brother and he killed him, for the sin of being king when he coveted the crown.”

 

“It was Warwick, it was _all_ Warwick’s doing, and now he is dead –”

 

“As is Edward.”

 

“And you would see me lose another son?”

 

 _Your favorite son_ , he does not retort. It is a miracle the words do not pass his lips.

 

“You will forgive him, Richard, you will,” she insists without shame.

 

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mother, but I will not.”

 

Defiantly, she rises then. “You will forgive him. I command it.”

 

“You do not command me,” he hisses.

 

“I am your mother,” she grits out.

 

“Yes, and I am your king!”

 

His mother’s hand is at her heart, clearly stunned. Though a wolf within, George has been ever a lamb with her and Edward always indulgently humored her. Since Father and Edmund died, she has never been made to accept a thing she did not like, save Edward’s marriage. As for Richard, she has had some difficulty reconciling the boy – her youngest boy – of her memories with the solemn young king trying to fill his eldest brother’s place on the throne.

 

Truly, he did not mean to shout, but he cannot allow himself to be questioned thus before his court, and by his own mother. What would his enemies do if they saw him capitulate so easily? He speaks more calmly, but in a raised voice for the benefit of the courtiers. “But for your sake, lady mother, I will show him mercy –”

 

His mother looks at him so hopefully that he can hardly bear it, even as angry as he was only moments ago.

 

“The mercy of choosing the means of his own death. Whether it be the sword or the scaffold or the block, or whatever he chooses, but he will die. It is a far greater mercy than he showed _your son_ King Edward.”

 

The throne room fills with gasps and his mother begins to wail.

 

Still, he will not let himself be moved, not even when she goes to her knees again and prostrates herself at his feet. “Please, Richard. Please. You’re my son. You can’t do this to me, you can’t kill him. Please, Richard, I beg you. I beg you!”

 

He stands and moves to sweep past his mother, avoiding her grasp, and turns to the two guards who restrain George. “Take him to the Tower.”

 

“Richard, no, please –” George pleads.

 

“Go in God, brother,” he says, allowing the slightest hint of irony to enter his voice.

 

Elizabeth nods at him with respect in her eyes as George is led away, still pleading for the mercy he refused to show Edward when he and Warwick captured him.

 

\---

 

His sister-in-law and her kin keep as close to him as they are able. He values Anthony’s counsel and he cannot dismiss the rest of them without incivility, so he feels submerged as deep in the Rivers as Edward once was.

 

But there is one difference: unlike his brother, Richard cannot be bewitched into marrying a Rivers girl, for Lady Rivers fulfilled her maternal matchmaking duties so thoroughly that she has no daughter left to put in the new king’s bed. How she must regret it now!

 

Not that it would surprise him if Elizabeth should attempt a seduction despite the fifteen years between them. Even at three and thirty, she remains a handsome woman – and a scheming, desperate widow who is not ready to give way to a new, younger queen whenever he should choose to marry; he cannot help but notice the excessive care she takes with her appearance even while she still wears dark mourning blue.

 

And so Elizabeth and Anthony are with him when he receives George’s message from the Tower of London, which he opens with shaking hands.

 

_To my most gracious brother the King,_

 

_I thank you for showing me the mercy of a death of my own choosing. And I ask: as it is by Your Grace’s wish that I die, should it not also be by Your Grace’s hand? That is my choice._

Defiantly, he signs himself _Clarence_. Typical George, spiteful to the last.

 

If anything, Richard is surprised that George does not call himself king and Richard usurper. He casts the letter aside in disgust.

 

\---

 

_Dextera tua erigas, virtute confirmes, potestate tuearis._

_Cum omni desiderata prosperitate, restituas._

_Per Christum Dominum nostrum._

_Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._

And yet . . . and yet, he feels the prick of most unmanful tears as he stands in his hidden alcove in the Tower and watches George be drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine, the death he chose in the end – a choice Elizabeth claims was made to spite her, for she favors Malmsey above else, when George could not have his way with Richard.

 

_He wants to be drowned in a barrel of wine._

_Oh, don’t joke, Anthony._

_George, the fool, has chosen a fool’s death . . . a barrel of Malmsey wine._

_He’s no fool. It’s to punish me._

 

“Is no one coming to see me? My wife? My mother, or at least my brother? Wait! Wait, please! At least let me see my brother the king. No! Agh!”

 

How did it come to this, to Edward executed at Warwick’s command, George at his own, and him standing alone as king?

 

Utterly, entirely alone.


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Save for George and Warwick and others who could not be pardoned and made to swear fealty, Richard has striven to show himself a merciful king. And so he has never had the Countess of Warwick attainted, because she committed no crime but following her husband as a good wife ought.

_January 1471_

 

Save for George and Warwick and others who could not be pardoned and made to swear fealty, Richard has striven to show himself a merciful king. And so he has never had the Countess of Warwick attainted, because she committed no crime but following her husband as a good wife ought.

 

Still, even with the entailed Neville fortune in the Crown’s keeping, leaving such a fortune as the Beauchamp-Despenser inheritance in the hands of an attainted traitor’s widow, to be inherited by that traitor’s daughters is spectacularly unwise – particularly when one of those daughters is widow to another traitor and mother to his son, who would be king by rights if not for that attainder. But Richard does not know how to take it from the Warwick women, save by force, until he comes upon a far more satisfying solution and summons the Countess of Warwick to court alone to share it with her. 

 

\---

 

After the Countess of Warwick is announced, she sweeps a low curtsey before approaching and kneeling before him upon the throne. “Your Grace, I beg for your pardon, for myself and my daughters. It was not our will to betray our rightful king; I only obeyed my lord husband as any wife would and they their father as any daughters might.”

 

It is a strange sight to see proud Anne Beauchamp, the woman whose mother’s kiss and blessing he knelt for each night during his years in Warwick’s household, on her knees in front of him, head bowed abjectly.

 

“And my sister of Clarence her husband, of course?”

 

“Yes, Your Grace,” the countess says, head still bowed. “We none of us had any choice but to obey Warwick and Clarence.”

 

“And you know that their cause had no merit?”

 

“I know it now.”

 

He waits a long moment, having realized early on that deliberateness is a critical ingredient of royal dignity. “Then I pardon you.”

 

She raises her head then. “Your Grace, I am grateful for the mercy you have shown me.”

 

He nods. “Rise, my lady.”

 

She takes a deep breath, clearly knowing that that was only a formality before they arrived at the reason for his summons.

 

He lowers his voice for her ears only. “I would have you attend me privately, in my presence chamber, after the morning audiences.”

 

\---

 

After the Countess of Warwick is escorted into his presence chamber and sweeps another low curtsey, he does not waste a moment. “How would you like to see your daughter a queen, my lady?”

 

The countess’s eyes go very wide. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

 

It is the first time he has ever seen Anne Beauchamp anything but composed.

 

“I asked if you would like to see your daughter a queen.”

 

“Of England?”

 

“Yes, of England. _My_ queen.”

 

“You do mean Anne, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, of course. I could not marry my brother’s widow.”

 

Briefly, however, he had considered it; if he could secure a dispensation despite their close relation and marry Isabel, she could hardly go against him in her son’s name, for she would be disinheriting whatever children she had with him. The fact that her son’s existence proved her ability to conceive and bear a child with ease – unlike her lady mother – did not hurt. In fact, he thought himself quite brilliant until he realized that Isabel might well act as his mother did, with her threats to unseat Edward in George’s favor when he married Elizabeth, favoring the child of her beloved first husband over those she bears the man she sees as his murderer.

 

And the truth was that he had never liked Isabel overmuch; even as a girl, she’d shown flashes of the haughtiness and self-importance that made her a most excellent match for George when they were grown.

 

_Last time we saw you, Richard, you fell off your horse at our father's castle, do you remember?_

 

Anne, on the other hand, he had always been fond of, and she of him. She might never be a great beauty like Isabel, but she would be a better wife to him. She was clever and kind and _honest_ and she made him laugh with her droll impertinence. God knows he’s heard little honesty and had little reason to laugh since Warwick’s rebellion.

 

“Why, Your Grace?” the countess asks suspiciously.

 

“I want to make peace with you, your daughters, and your affinity. I do not want the northmen against me when there remain the Tudors and the Lancastrian affinity to stir up trouble.”

 

“And what else?” she presses shrewdly.

 

“I want your fortune. I would have you give it over to Anne before we marry.”

 

The countess stares at him in disbelief. “You are king; you are wealthier now even than my husband was before he was attainted, the treasury overflowing with the fortunes of attainted traitors. What need have you of my fortune?”

 

She is not quite right on that score; he had pardoned those who could reasonably be pardoned and rewarded Yorkists and so the treasury is not so enriched as she believes.

 

“It is too vast a fortune to be left to traitors’ widows such as yourself and Isabel,” he says bluntly.

 

“Because of my grandson, who is your nephew.”

 

“My nephew, yes, but also the son of a traitor,” Richard reminds her.

 

“And yet a threat to you, far greater than my fortune alone, or else you would not propose this match.”

 

“He will never be king and he can never inherit your fortune, but he will be honored as a king’s nephew ought to be if you and your daughter agree to this.”

 

“You expect me to willingly make a pauper of Isabel?”

 

“I will dower her and make her a good marriage,” Richard promises.

 

“To whom?”

 

“Earl Rivers, my own right hand.” Anthony, recently a widower, is Earl Rivers now; his father and younger brother John, like Edward, also died at Warwick’s hand. Anthony has no more love for the Nevilles than the rest of his kin, but he has agreed, either out of duty or avarice – because Richard failed to mention that Isabel would come to him without her share of the Warwick fortune and that he means to make her sister his queen. Anthony may well be more of a jailer than a husband to Isabel Neville, even if a gentle one, but Richard finds himself unmoved at the thought.

 

“That –” The countess wisely swallows her intemperate words and grasps for others before she tries to speak again. “I must discuss this with my daughters, but unless they object, I accept your terms, Your Grace.”

 

“Very good, my lady.” He makes a gesture of dismissal, allowing her to take her leave of him.

 

She curtsies and departs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, Anthony’s wife died three years before she did historically.


End file.
